I want to have our Project Engineers and Procurement using PDM to get information. However, I want to keep a lid on anything that is not in the 'Released' State from going out of the factory.

I think Procurement is fairly straightforward. They need access to Released stuff so they can buy it.

Project Engineers are somewhat different. (I suppose that is both a specific and a general statement...)

If I do the obvious: limit it so that Project Engineers can only view the contents of files in the 'Released' State, then the Project Engineers will complain that they have no visibility of the project as the design progresses, until it is arguably too late; however, if I let them see CAD files at other States, sooner or later someone is going to copy a file from PDM and send it to their customer, or other interested party, even though it has not been released.

I know Standard Operating Procedures should prevent anything of the sort from happening, but, when the customer is squealing, one of them will weaken, I know they will.

Is there a set of permissions I can apply to PDM that enables Project folk to rummage through the designers' business, but that prevents them from doing anything other than looking at it wistfully?

I have no idea the answer to your question.....however, I seem to recall our VAR (when they were trying to sell it to us) telling us that you can have different licenses for different users, which controls what they can and cannot do.

You are right, we have editor licences for the CAD users and Viewer licences for the others.

It's really how other people have their permissions set - I'm looking for best practice.

I have also asked the VAR, but it is always good to hear a wider perspective on what constitutes best practice. Every time a thread gets long on here, I realise that one or more people is using a Solidworks workflow or technique that I had never considered, or seen a need for. It is one of the more fascinating aspects of this forum.

and download the Excel File and go to the PDM Page and do a few searches - there is a lot of good information right here on the forum, however it's buried. A topic is usually buried forever 10 pages deep, it hardly ever comes up to the top again. The primary reason is that it's extremely hard to search the forum..

It is my understanding that 2018 PDM Professional - Web2 - added a feature that would 'disallow download' for users using that client. I'm confident it is there as it's referenced in the 2018 PDM Installation Guide with instructions on how to enable it.

Perceived cons:

PDM Admin and IT would have to install and configure a Web2 Server for their vault. (Covered in the installation guide, requires IIS, some project planning required)

Some higher security environments may not play nice with a Web2 Server without some work with the IT team or network administrators.

Viewer users would need:

Each of their machines would have to be touched to uninstall the PDM 'thick' client.

Retraining on how to use the new browser based interface

Web interface is not as robust as the PDM 'thick' client.

Some of these perceived cons are actually pros in the long run. 'Viewers' would no longer need a PDM client install. Viewers tend to be a smaller group of users so retraining them isn't as monumental task in many cases.

However, the benefit of being able to 'protect' data from casual PDM viewers may be well worth the work.

How about you add a "preliminary" watermark on files in the unreleased state which is removed during transition to the released state?

Scott,

yes, we do that and drawings are therefore taken care of. The bigger problem is with parts and assemblies - project and sales engineers want to send edrawings to their customers, and I can't see a way to let them see the parts and assemblies but not save them.